Suffolk Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore was at Eye’s town council meeting on Wednesday evening, and presented the town’s Speedwatch group with the speed gun that will be used.

Eye Speedwatch co-ordinator Robin Knight was at the meeting to receive the equipment.

The group will be operating through Eye in the 30 miles per hour areas.

The scheme allows volunteers to record registration numbers of offending vehicles, the details of which are passed on to Suffolk police.

Letters are then sent to offenders, who can be targeted for police enforcement.

Police say benefits of the scheme include fewer fatalities and less serious injury collisions. Mr Passmore said: “I’m a great supporter of Community Speedwatch because it’s an example of where a community helps themselves.

“Looking at speeding people have problems with it. If we can use a safer way of reminding people about speeding then I’m a great supporter of it.”

Mr Passmore said at the meeting that from the surplus money from people who are invited to come onto speed awareness courses, which is around £250,000, would be ring-fenced and put into improving road safety in market towns and villages, and improving driver awareness.

Mr Knight said the group had been working towards this point since January last year.

He said: “I think more than anything it’s about making people away of the speed they are doing.

“We collated a group of people who had strong feelings about traffic problems in Eye.

“We asked what the problems were and there were only a certain number of things we could affect. We can’t control the volume of traffic but we can control the speed of it.

“It’s good to see 16 to 18 months (of work) come to fruition and hopefully we can make people aware of the speeds through our town so we can make Eye a safer town to live and work in.”

Mr Knight hopes that the group of the nine signed and authorised members will be operating the gun in two or three weeks’ time.

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